Poem fractal

How shall a man

by Hartley Coleridge

19 September 1796 to 6 January 1849 (~53)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“I claim, and will maintain my claim, to be sole judge of what is my duty; that which I hold to be such I hope I shall not neglect, but am determined never to betray.”

Declaring moral independence while accepting the obligations of conscience · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1829

More remarks (49)

Drawing the boundary…

Read the poem Another poem

A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. A poem can be drawn the same way.

The poem’s constant is read from the build of its lines: their length, the size of the stanzas, and the share of vowels. Poems whose constants lie closer together are built more alike. The same poem always draws the same picture. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.

Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.

Poems nearby in the constant

A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.

  1. William Wordsworth · 0.2390 + 0.4883i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  2. D. H. Lawrence · 0.2243 + 0.5221i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.2088 + 0.5215i · 0.046 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edna St. Vincent Millay · 0.2534 + 0.5450i · 0.046 away · Compare side by side
  5. William Shakespeare · 0.2597 + 0.5499i · 0.052 away · Compare side by side
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